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May. 19th, 2003 11:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
karenoralright i may be a little delirious from killing myself working on this paper (it's ALMOST 4 pages long, god i am so screwed) but this is the funniest thing i've seen in a while. It's about, shall we say, inconsistences in Arthurian literature:
Born at an unknown time and place, Guinevere is the daughter of an unnamed noble Roman, of Leodegan, or of King Ryon of Ireland. Her mother, named like her daughter, indulges in lechery and adultery, for which she is eternally damned. An unsightly spectre, she since haunts a lake in Cumbria until redeemed by her virtuous daughter. Brought up by either of her fathers or the Cornish Duke Cador, Guinevere marries Arthur for love, out of gratefulness for his aid in her father’s war against King Ryon (who, elsewhere, is her father), or for convenience, because Merlin wants to lay his hands on the Round Table. Guinevere’s father, it turns out, is not entirely immune to carnal temptations and begets a bastard daughter of identical face and name on his seneschal’s wife. In the course of their marriage, the King and Queen love each other passionately and faithfully, but each of them has a varying stock of lovers: Arthur lies with his sister Morgaine and the False Guinevere, begets a son on Lionors, rapes a virgin, and dates Camilla, a Saxon enemy, while Guinevere takes a French lover and earns a general reputation of promiscuity. Her French lover, alas, sleeps with another woman, leaves Guinevere, defends her, restores her to her husband, but also beheads her and forces Modred to chew her remains. He thinks of her or visits her at a nunnery after Arthur’s death, finding her dead and buried, or sufficiently alive to convert him into a hermit, in which case they die simultaneously. Possible causes of her death are old age, deprivation, decapitation, various types of suicide, or grief for the loss of her husband and son. Her afterlife is equally undecided, for she variously goes to heaven or burns in hell. She unites among others the characteristics of the Virgin Mary, Eve, Hecuba, Lucrece, and the stepmother of the Sleeping Beauty. She is barren but graced with a son, whose name may be Loholt, or with three sons, called Adeluf III, Morgan le Noir, and Patrike le Rous. Yet these may also be Arthur’s bastards, like Modred, Borre, and Arthur the Little. Rumour also has it that Modred gets her pregnant as a result of a love affair, rape, abduction, or bigamy, neither of which may have taken place because she cleverly withdraws to the Tower to defend herself.
Born at an unknown time and place, Guinevere is the daughter of an unnamed noble Roman, of Leodegan, or of King Ryon of Ireland. Her mother, named like her daughter, indulges in lechery and adultery, for which she is eternally damned. An unsightly spectre, she since haunts a lake in Cumbria until redeemed by her virtuous daughter. Brought up by either of her fathers or the Cornish Duke Cador, Guinevere marries Arthur for love, out of gratefulness for his aid in her father’s war against King Ryon (who, elsewhere, is her father), or for convenience, because Merlin wants to lay his hands on the Round Table. Guinevere’s father, it turns out, is not entirely immune to carnal temptations and begets a bastard daughter of identical face and name on his seneschal’s wife. In the course of their marriage, the King and Queen love each other passionately and faithfully, but each of them has a varying stock of lovers: Arthur lies with his sister Morgaine and the False Guinevere, begets a son on Lionors, rapes a virgin, and dates Camilla, a Saxon enemy, while Guinevere takes a French lover and earns a general reputation of promiscuity. Her French lover, alas, sleeps with another woman, leaves Guinevere, defends her, restores her to her husband, but also beheads her and forces Modred to chew her remains. He thinks of her or visits her at a nunnery after Arthur’s death, finding her dead and buried, or sufficiently alive to convert him into a hermit, in which case they die simultaneously. Possible causes of her death are old age, deprivation, decapitation, various types of suicide, or grief for the loss of her husband and son. Her afterlife is equally undecided, for she variously goes to heaven or burns in hell. She unites among others the characteristics of the Virgin Mary, Eve, Hecuba, Lucrece, and the stepmother of the Sleeping Beauty. She is barren but graced with a son, whose name may be Loholt, or with three sons, called Adeluf III, Morgan le Noir, and Patrike le Rous. Yet these may also be Arthur’s bastards, like Modred, Borre, and Arthur the Little. Rumour also has it that Modred gets her pregnant as a result of a love affair, rape, abduction, or bigamy, neither of which may have taken place because she cleverly withdraws to the Tower to defend herself.
